


Reminding Me of Who I Killed

by Metaphorical_Tables



Series: A Cold and Broken Hallelujah [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, But first, Denial, Drama, Eventual Happy Ending, Eye Trauma, Gen, Hauntings, Horror, I mean it's kind of bad but, I'm not sure if the violence is graphic or not?, It's in a dream but still, Lots of Tea, POV Alternating, Plot Twist, Possession, Psychological Trauma, Tea, in addition to the eye kind, of a sort, short-ish chapters, theres not a lot of detail
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-07 00:09:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17355233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metaphorical_Tables/pseuds/Metaphorical_Tables
Summary: Maybe the day had gotten to him more than he’d thought. It was impossible, but…For a second, he thought he’d seen Izuna._____In which Tobirama has a series of increasingly bad days, Madara might not hate him as much as he thinks, and Izuna is slightly less dead than he should be.





	1. A Vision, Softly Creeping

**Author's Note:**

> This fic's pre-written, so updates should be pretty regular. I'm planning a sequel, eventually, but that one might not be as consistent.  
> Story title is from Twenty One Pilots' _Car Radio _, and chapter title is from The Sound Of Silence, which is by Simon and Garfunkel but I listen to the Disturbed cover.__

It’s the anniversary of Izuna’s death, today.

It’s just like any other day, really. The building is still busy. There’s still piles of work to do. The only noticeable difference is that Madara took the day off.

Even that’s only remarkable because they’re still in the process of building the village. Despite his personal distaste for the man, Tobirama can admit that Madara is important to said process. It’s his and Hashirama’s dream, and their alliance is what the village was centered around. One optimistic fool (even if he is insanely powerful) is not enough to convince anyone of a revolutionary idea.

But an optimistic fool who managed to win over a rival clan? Especially one widely regarded as their clan’s _greatest enemy_?

And the clans follow the clan heads. So, Madara is important.

Today there was actually some work that required him specifically. Signatures, mostly, since neither Hashirama or Madara are particularly gifted at the politics of building a village. ( _But that’s why Mito and Tobirama were there._ )

Any other day, when Madara is skipping work to do something else (like training, or getting food, or talking to his clanmates, or pestering Hashirama…), Tobirama would just pop in ( _depending on how annoyed he was, he’d use hiraishin_ ) and dump the paperwork in front of him.

But today isn’t any other day.

And Tobirama can’t quite bring himself to intrude. Especially being _who_ he is.

The papers can… wait until tomorrow. Or maybe he’ll give them to Hashirama, to give to Madara.

Actually, no. He can’t trust Hashirama with any official documents. He’ll just wait.

( _He’ll never admit it, but the thought of appearing before Madara, on the day he killed Izuna, fills him with anxiety. Madara is always angry, but having the full force of his hatred directed solely at him—_

_Well._

_Suffice to say, it’s not something he wants to experience anytime soon._ )

__________

After a long day of pointedly _not_ thinking of Madara or Izuna, Tobirama heads home.

As he walks, he takes stock of the village. The new buildings are coming along nicely. It’d been a challenge to convince his brother that _no, you can’t just grow all of them, you don’t know anything about architecture, and besides your sense of style is atrocious_. While it would be faster, doing it manually has more advantages; personalization, professional quality, the creation of jobs…

Speaking of Hashirama. Tobirama extends his senses. His brother is… with Madara. Of course.

He sighs.

At least Mito is there with them, a beacon of steady calm next to the two powerhouses. She’ll make sure they didn’t break anything too important, at least.

Touka is in the Senju district. Judging by how her chakra signature is acting, she’s training.

As he reaches the end of his very short list of check-ins, Tobirama realises he doesn’t have any friends outside of his immediate family.

Hm.

Well, as long as it doesn’t affect his work, it doesn’t really matter.

After a short stop in the market to restock some of his tea (he was running low) he arrives home. Ever since Hashirama and Mito had gotten married, he’d lived in a separate house. It’s nearby, so his brother can still come bother him whenever he wants, but it’s… quiet.

He is very grateful he doesn’t have to listen to them _copulate_ anymore, but sometimes he wishes…

But it doesn’t matter. These are his circumstances, and he has to accept them.

He shuts the door behind him, and activates his wards. Then he heads towards the kitchen to put his tea away.

He passes the living room, then stops. Abruptly, he turns back to face the room, his heart pounding.

But there’s no one there.

He didn’t sense anything. But, all the same, he sets his tea on the ground and carefully walks into the room. Sure enough, there’s nothing. No sign of anyone having been there. Not even chakra residue.

He goes back to his tea, still slightly on edge. Maybe the day had gotten to him more than he’d thought. It was impossible, but…

For a second, he thought he’d seen Izuna.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Time:
> 
> _He stares at the steaming cup in his hands, contemplating the dream that had awoken him. He doesn’t remember much; most of it had slipped away, like sand through his fingers._
> 
> _Mostly he remembers the fear and the guilt._
> 
> _That doesn’t really give him much to go on, really. ___


	2. I Try My Best to Block Out the Screams (but They're Haunting Me in My Dreams)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to post this yesterday but things came up and I completely forgot.
> 
> Chapter title is from "Awoken" by Wooden Toaster, or Glaze, or H8_Seed, or something  
> It's a MLP youtube song, IDK who the fuck I'm supposed to credit it to

He doesn’t quite calm down all the way  down by the time he goes to bed. He’d done some work in the meantime to get his mind off it, but as he climbs into bed, he’s still tense.

He focuses on his brother’s signature, merely a few yards away and shifting gently in his sleep. He lets Hashirama’s warmth lull him to sleep.

He’ll feel better in the morning.

_____

Morning comes and Tobirama jolts awake an hour early, choking down a whine and a nightmare quickly slipping out of his memory.

He does not feel better.

Nonetheless, he gets up. He’s not going to be able to go back to sleep in time, so he might as well get ready for the day. Tea is always a good start.

He stares at the steaming cup in his hands, contemplating the dream that had awoken him. He doesn’t remember much; most of it had slipped away, like sand through his fingers.

Mostly he remembers the fear and the guilt.

That doesn’t really give him much to go on, really.

_____

Madara’s back, today, so the first thing Tobirama does is dump the paperwork from yesterday on him.

“These need to be signed and returned by the end of the day.”

Madara snarls at him, but Tobirama’s out the door before he can do anything else.

____

The day is pretty average, until he goes to sit back down at his desk after lunch. As he’s turning to sit down, he sees a shape out of the corner of his eye. He whirls to face it.

But there’s no one there.

Again.

He’s—He’s seeing things. It’s probably just the sleep deprivation. He was thinking about Izuna, so his tired mind ( _ never mind that this isn’t even the worst he’s been _ ) tried to recognize patterns that  _ weren’t there. _ That  _ couldn’t _ be there.

____

The rest of the day passes in a blur of paperwork and tension. As he walks home, he finds he’s hesitant to actually go in. ( _ It’s only happened when he’s alone— _ ) But the notion is absurd; It’s  _ his  _ house. He designed the wards himself—no one could get through them without him sensing it. And besides,  _ nothing has happened. _ He’s just… tired.

He makes himself some tea. Hopefully, it will calm him down. He turns idly as he blows across the top of his drink, and catches sight of something out of the corner of his eye. He resolutely turns back, ignoring the sudden tension in his body. He mechanically takes a sip.

It does not calm him down.

He eventually drains the rest of his cup, ignoring the feeling of building anticipation. Then, he washes and dries his cup, puts it away, and heads to his bedroom, all the while pointedly not looking at the corner  _ Izuna _ the shadow had been.

He has nightmares again.

____

The next three days pass much the same, with Tobirama becoming progressively twitchier, as well as more and more snappish. Luckily, no one has really noticed yet, as he is not exactly the most social or approachable person in the first place. 

( _He has also taken to avoiding Madara, but that is another item on his ever-increasing list of things he is in denial about. He has_ _no reason_ _to be avoiding Madara, since what he is experiencing has_ _nothing to do with him_ _, because he is_ _not_ _seeing Izuna. He’s_ _not_ _.)_

He is only lucky that Hashirama has been tied up in meetings for the last couple days. If there is anyone who will notice his increasingly erratic behavior, it is his enthusiastically overprotective and nosy older brother.

Or Touka, but she doesn’t work in administration. She likes punching things too much to not have a regular mission schedule.

He goes to sleep on the third night, firmly ignoring the figure in his peripherals. If he were thinking logically, he might have realized that he should perhaps seek the help of at the very least his brother. After all, catching glimpses of a dead enemy following you everywhere is a problem to say the least. But, that would require Tobirama to not be so far in denial. After all, he doesn’t need help, he isn’t seeing specters of his dead rival, and he is  _ perfectly fine. _ He doesn’t need to bother his brother over nothing.

But then, when he sleeps that night, he dreams.

And unlike the nights before, he  _ remembers _ .

_____

He stands in a white void. He isn’t doing anything, and doesn’t have to. No tasks, no responsibilities. He can just… be.

He simply stands, his mind drifting in a pleasant haze. This is the most at peace he has felt in a while. He isn’t tense, or anxious, or even irritated. He’s just—fuzzy.

But then, across the horizon (also white) a figure appears. He doesn’t notice at first, because the figure is largely white themself. But as they get closer, Tobirama can see the black of their hair.

He feels dread well in his stomach. His chest tightens, his throat constricts, but his mind doesn’t get any less fuzzy.

The figure ( _ Izuna, he knows it’s Izuna, but he doesn’t want to admit that, even to himself _ —) moves towards him in fits and starts. The distance between them is ever shrinking, but Tobirama can’t seem to make himself move. The closer they get, the more he can see the details. The slight sway of hair. The blindfold-covered eyes. The white robe, closed right-over-left. The blood.

It’s soaked into the side of his burial robe, where Tobirama stabbed him. It’s dripping from the empty sockets behind his blindfold.

He flickers ever closer, until he’s right in front of him. He stretches a hand towards Tobirama’s unmoving figure and—

____

He wakes up, gasping.

He folds his legs against his chest and rests his head on his knees. He buries a hand in his hair and tugs slightly at the locks in his clenched fist, letting the pain ground him.

It’s far too early to start the day, by anyone’s standards. It would be foolish to get up now; it was hours away from sunrise. He should go back to bed.

But he doesn’t  _ want  _ to. He knows, intellectually, that any sleep is better than no sleep, but—

He’s… terrified. Of going back to sleep and returning to that dream. It’s stupid, and he  _ hates _ that a simple manifestation of his subconscious ( _ but is it, really? _ ) could make him so scared. But… 

Just this once, he decides. Just this once, he’ll forego function in favor of comfort.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time;  
>  _Every night, he dreams about Izuna. Every night, Izuna’s hand gets closer to his face, but never actually reaches.  
>  Until it does. ___


	3. Your Eyes Are Red (and Emptiness is All You Know)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from "Bleeding Out" by Imagine Dragons.

Time goes on, and it just gets worse. He’s seeing Izuna as much as five times a day, now. He’s even started admitting to himself that something’s wrong. But it’s just hallucinations, and he doesn’t want to bother anyone.

He can handle it.

( ~~_ No he can’t _ ~~ )

The dreams have gotten worse, too. Izuna’s hand never actually reaches him, before he wakes up, but… he thinks it’s getting closer every time. There’s no way to test it, to know for sure, but dreams are more about feelings than evidence anyway.

He’s so tired. It’s gotten to the point where occasionally he’ll start to doze off at work. But he’s fine. He can handle it.

( ~~_ No, he can’t, he’s coming apart at the seams— _ ~~ )

He’s got a handle on it, even if he has to drink more caffeinated tea than usual. Nothing’s wrong, even if he barely sleeps. He’s fine, even if he snaps more than usual at anyone who goes near him.

He’s  _ fine _ .

__________

Every night, he dreams about Izuna. Every night, Izuna’s hand gets closer to his face, but never actually reaches.

Until it does.

__________

He watches, as the hand comes closer and closer. And this time, instead of waking up, he hears something.

[ _ I don’t have eyes, you know. _ ]

Then the hand makes contact, and there’s a sharp pain in his left eye. His vision blacks out for a second, and suddenly he can move. He stumbles back, slapping a hand over his eye. It  _ hurts _ .

He looks back up, and realises why.

Izuna’s hand is extended in front of him. And resting on top of it, a single red eye.

[ _ It’s only fair you give me yours. _ ]

__________

He bolts upright in his bed, his hand flying to his eye. But it’s fine, still there, and there’s no pain.

It was just a dream. Just a dream.

He curls up into a ball, burying his face in his knees and a hand in his hair. He forces himself to take deep, shaking breaths, and looks for his brother’s chakra.

It’s there, shifting and pulsing gently with sleep. He grounds himself in the warm light, the feeling of  _ old-growth-and-sun-warmed-leaves _ and slowly, slowly brings his breathing back under control.

He calms down, for a given definition of ‘calm’, but he can’t— can’t get the image out of his mind. His fingers twitch. He needs— he needs—

He digs through the papers stacked in his room until he finds what he’s looking for. A sheaf of paper, and a stick of charcoal.

He likes to draw, sometimes, when he has the time. It wasn’t something his father had liked, though, so he’d gotten into the habit of hiding it.

He gets out a sheet and goes right into it, charcoal scratching across the page.

When he’s done he’s drawn the image that keeps haunting him; Izuna, with one of Tobirama’s eyes in his hand.

It’s a good likeness, but there’s something missing. He gets the ink; colors in the red. There’s so much red.

It’s done, and it helps, but it’s not enough. So he does another, and another, and another, until the sun come up. When he leaves his room to get ready for the day, it’s covered in black-and-white-and-red, a monument to his madness.

He make himself some tea, and resigns himself to another day of flinching at shadows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time:  
>  _“Tch.” He walks up to the desk, and observes the man in front of him. His head is resting on his hand, the other limply holding a brush— the Senju has dozed off in the middle of paperwork. His skin is even paler than usual, and he has dark circles under his eyes.  
>  He looks exhausted._


	4. The Blood's Run Stale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late!! I had school stuff going on,,,  
> Chapter title is from "Demons" by Imagine Dragons.

Tobirama’s been acting odd lately.

Madara shouldn’t care, honestly, he hates the other man, ( ~~ _does he really, though?_~~ ) but it’s something he can’t help but notice.

He hadn’t, at first, though in retrospect there were some… troubling instances earlier on. He’s not really sure when it started, but sometime after —the anniversary— Tobirama apparently stopped sleeping, or something.

It started out with him being a bit more twitchy than usual, and then he started snapping at people who didn’t really deserve it, and then it started showing physically. He _looked_ tired. There were shadows under his eyes and he just seemed… droopy.

Madara’s curiosity gets the better of him, so he tries to investigate. This leads him to another discovery.

Tobirama is avoiding him. Madara hadn’t noticed because he didn’t want to be around the Senju anyway. But thinking back, he hadn’t stopped in Madara’s office to lecture him at all in the past couple weeks.

Perhaps he’s doing one of his ungodly experiments. Madara had listened to Hashirama whine about how his brother got about creating jutsus enough to know it’s definitely an option.

He doesn’t think much about it, just idle curiosity. But when, at the end of the day, he has to deliver something to the Senju, he finds himself wondering.

Madara opens the door to Tobirama’s office, and—

He’s asleep. At his desk.

Okay, _now_ Madara’s curious. Because Tobirama is known to spend way too long on his projects, but he never lets it interfere with his work. Is this a fluke? Does he do this every time, and Madara is just the first person to catch him doing it?

Or is it something else?

“Tch.” He walks up to the desk, and observes the man in front of him. His head is resting on his hand, the other limply holding a brush— the Senju has dozed off in the middle of paperwork. His skin is even paler than usual, and he has dark circles under his eyes.

He looks exhausted.

Madara lifts his hand, going to prod the other man awake. “Oi, Senju—”

But he never makes contact, because halfway through the motion, Tobirama’s eye snap open, and suddenly the Senju is leaping back out of his chair, away from Madara’s hand.

The motion is sudden, and startles him into activating his sharingan. Normally, the next step he would take would be to attack, but—

Tobirama looks _terrified_.

It only lasts a second, before he snaps out of it. “Madara.” He relaxes slightly from his defensive stance ( _there’s something familiar about that pose, what is it-?_ ) and releases a breath. “…I apologize. I— thought you were someone else.”

Madara narrows his eyes, for once in confusion instead of anger. “It’s fine. No harm done.” He sets the scroll down on the desk. “This is for you.” Then, because the situation does not affect him at all ( _god, he can’t even fool himself, he’s invested already_ ) he leaves.

He tries to ignore it, but the whole situation is bizarre. The thing that bothers him most though. Who had Tobirama seen instead of him, that the truth was a _relief?_

The whole thing was burned into his memory thanks to the sharingan, and he spends the rest of the day (or night, really,) trying not to think about it and failing miserably.

__________

He doesn’t last long after he wakes up before he’s thinking about it again. The main thing sticking out in his memory is the defensive pose he’d seen Tobirama take. The idea in itself wasn’t odd— the two of them often argued, or fought, and defensive body language was part of that process.

It’s just that usually, the Senju’s defensive posture is crossed arms, or hunched shoulders. Meant to protect the torso, with its many important organs, muscles, and blood vessels. What he’d seen in the office, that was different. Tobirama had his arms up, in front of his head. Like he was protecting—

His eyes.

He was protecting his eyes, that’s why it had looked familiar— Madara has seen it in many of his traumatized clansmen, the ones who had narrowly escaped _having their eyes stolen_.

He stands up, the rest of his breakfast forgotten. He rushes to get ready, and heads for the door.

He has to see Hashirama.

Maybe he doesn’t like Tobirama, but if there is something, or someone, that could give the Senju a fear of having his eyes stolen _while he was still in the village_ , then as head of a clan of doujutsu wielders, Madara has to know.

He storms through the village like a man on a mission. People hurry to get out of his way but, not for the first time, Madara can’t bring himself to care.

When he gets to Hashirama’s house, he knocks loudly, and then doesn’t wait before letting himself in.

“Hashirama!” He shouts, walking deeper into the house. As he reaches the kitchen, he notices the Uzumaki princess is seated at the table.

“Mito,” he greets neutrally, “ I need to borrow your moron for a second.”

Mito sips gracefully at a cup of tea. (He has no idea how she does everything with such an air of delicate power, and at this point he’s afraid to ask.) “Just give him back when you’re done, if you don’t mind.”

He nods, and then continues on. He can sense Hashirama’s stupidly enormous chakra signature in the man’s bedroom, so Madara slams open the door and storms in. “Hashirama!”

Hashirama jumps out of bed and away from Madara, putting his hands up in an ‘I surrender’ pose. “Madara?!”

Madara levels a finger at Hashirama. He’s never been one for subtlety, so he gets right to the point. “What the hell is up with your brother?!”

“What do you mean?!”

Madara falters. Hashirama didn’t know? “I mean the way he’s been acting recently! …Have you not noticed?”

“I noticed he’s tired, but he gets tired every time he works on a project.” Hashirama must see something in Madara’s expression, because then he gets worried. “What, is there something else?”

“When I went to give him a scroll yesterday, he was asleep at his desk.” Ignoring Hashirama’s shocked look, he keeps talking. That wasn’t the worst part. “Then I went to wake him up, and he freaked out. He was terrified! And then he realised it was me, and he was _relieved!_ ”

Hashirama starts to look appropriately concerned. “What? But— no offence, but— Tobirama hates you!”

“Evidently, whoever he thought I was is worse.” Madara grimaces. “Hashirama, I think… whoever it was is after his eyes, for some reason.”

“What?” Hashirama’s expression is complicated; somewhere between worried and skeptical.  “But that doesn’t make sense— Tobirama doesn’t have a doujutsu or anything!”

“Hashirama, I’m an Uchiha!” Madara snarls, “I _know_ what someone _protecting their eyes_ looks like!”

“If I might make a suggestion,” Mito says from the door, “You could _ask Tobirama._ ”

Silence stretches for a few seconds, as the two men remember where they are, and then realise what morons they’re being. ( _Of course they should ask Tobirama! He’s the only one who_ _knows_ _why he’s acting weird._ )

They turn back to face each other, and nod. Then they rush out of the house, Hashirama barely remembering to put on his shoes.

They check the office first, and when Tobirama isn’t there they head to his house. When they knock, no one answers, and they look at each other with growing concern. Madara reaches for the door.

“Wait.” Hashirama grabs his hand and moves to open it himself. “He’s got wards. You’re probably not keyed into them, considering.”

Hashirama opens the door and walks in, Madara close behind him.

“Tobirama?” Hashirama calls into the house, a distorted mirror of Madara’s earlier actions.

They walk farther in, but the house is quiet. Every room they pass is empty, and the farther in they go, the more foreboding of a feeling Madara gets. He peers into the kitchen. There’s a cracked and spilled cup of tea on the floor. His bad feeling increases.

“Tobirama?” Hashirama tries again. “Tobirama, are you home?” He tries the bedroom. “Tobira—”

He cuts off, staring into the room.

“What?” Madara stalks over. He shoves past Hashirama, trying to see what he’s looking at. “What is it—?”

The room is covered in drawings. Every inch of space is covered by paper, and on each paper, in charcoal and red ink—

“Izuna.” Madara sucks in a breath. Every drawing is of Izuna, in his burial robe, covered in blood. Some are just that, but in some, he holds eyes in his hand. Red, red eyes. “He’s afraid of Izuna. Of Izuna taking his eyes. But why—”

“He’s a ghost!” Madara looks at Hashirama, and he’s tugging on fistfulls of his hair. “Your little brother is haunting mine, Tobirama’s missing—” He says, high pitched and hysterical, “And I’m in my _pajamas!_ ”

Madara reaches down and picks up one of the drawings, running his fingers over the lines. “This— this doesn’t make sense. Even if he was —a ghost— Izuna… He’s not like this. Even if I hate to admit it, your brother beat him fair and square. Izuna respected that. He wouldn’t—” Madara cleared his throat. “And beyond that, in our clan, taking someone’s eyes without permission is a worse crime than— well— pretty much anything except rape. Izuna— Izuna _wouldn’t._ ”

Hashirama lets go of his hair, and visibly forces himself to calm down. His expression hardens into one Madara has only seen a few times— his friend is serious, now. For all he’s generally a happy-go-lucky moron, Hashirama is very protective of his family. It’s something they have in common. “We need to find him.”

Madara couldn’t agree more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time:  
>  _He turns back to the table. He’s spilled his tea, and the liquid slowly spreads over the wood. He stares at it. It’s nearing the edge of the table. He should probably clean it up.  
>  For the first time in many, many years, he feels like he’s going to cry._


	5. You're Not as Brave as You Were at the Start

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops  
> I may just be physically incapable of updating on time, sorry  
> Chapter title is from "Little Lion Man" by Mumford and Sons.

He can’t believe he  _ fell asleep in his office. _

And what’s worse, Madara caught him at it. He’ll never hear the end of it. ( _ When he first woke up, all he saw was black hair and a pale hand coming towards him. It was… a little too familiar for comfort. _ )

He’s just so  _ tired. _ He’s been trying, to work, or sleep, or even just  _ rest _ , but he can’t calm down. He’s constantly tense, a wound-up ball of anxiety. It doesn’t help that every time he’s alone, he keeps seeing  _ Izuna _ out of the corner of his eye.

He makes a cup of tea, and just… stares at the swirling steam rising from it.

The ceramic is warm in his hands, and he lets the swirling patterns of the water vapor lull him into a dazed sort of half-sleep. Not deep enough to dream, but just enough to leave his mind in a sort of blank haze. His shoulders are stiff from stress, and he just wants to sleep. But every time he sleeps nightmares wake him far too early for him to feel rested.

The house is quiet. The night is calm. The steam swirls.

Something brushes the back of his neck.

He jolts and spins around, eyes frantically searching for black and white and red— but there’s nothing there.

He turns back to the table. He’s spilled his tea, and the liquid slowly spreads over the wood. He stares at it. It’s nearing the edge of the table. He should probably clean it up.

For the first time in many, many years, he feels like he’s going to cry.

__________

He has the same dream again, except this time it doesn’t stop. Izuna takes his eye, and then the other. There’s a delay, though, such in the way of dreams, between the act itself and when Tobirama loses his ability to see. For a split second, he sees Izuna, with both of Tobirama’s eyes in his hand. Then, it’s dark.

But he doesn’t wake up.

He just stand in the blackness, so similar to the white void of before, and yet not. He can’t sense Izuna, but, he knows he’s still there.

His eyes _(_ _~~ or lack thereof ~~ _ _)_ hurt. He can feel warmth streaming down his face, and he’s not sure if it’s tears, or blood.

A hand touches his face, and he tries to flinch back, but he can’t move. It’s tacky with blood. He can’t see what Izuna has done with his eyes, but in the way dreams are, he doesn’t need to. He knows.

They’re Izuna’s, now.

__________

When he wakes up, it’s not violent like the times before. It’s with a terrible feeling of acceptance, and that scares him more than anything else so far. He sits up, and his cheeks are wet. He’s been crying. He wipes the tears away, and the sensation is a terrible reminder of recent memories.

He keeps feeling bloody fingers on his skin, and he can’t get that last image out of his mind.

He grabs his paper, again. The drawings are the same, except this time Izuna has two eyes in his hand.

Then, he draws a single image he hasn’t actually seen. It’s different from the others, messy and harsh instead of terribly, horribly  _ accurate _ . But when he’s finished, his own eyes stare up at him from Izuna’s face.

His hands shake as he looks at it. He grits his teeth and crumples the paper into a ball.

He leaves his bedroom, going to the kitchen. Making tea is more of a formality at this point, as it hasn’t helped his mood for weeks now, but he does it anyway. At the very least, he needs the caffeine if he’s going to stay awake. He makes the tea on the counter, not bothering to sit at the table. It’s faster this way.

The water heats up, the tea steeps. He pours it into his cup, and takes a sip. It’s over brewed, the liquid a shade too bitter, but Tobirama can’t bring himself to care. He takes another sip. He should probably sit at the table, or maybe his desk. He could… do paperwork, or something.

Anything is better than just standing there with his thoughts. Decided, though dully, (he can’t quite muster up even the smallest bit of emotion. He’s burnt out.) he turns around.

And comes face-to-face with Izuna.

Tobirama sucks in half of a panicked breath, and instinctively tugs on one of his hiraishin markers. He’s gone in an instant, reappearing just outside the village gates. He runs farther, the only thing on his mind being  _ escape. _

He can feel Izuna behind him, trailing him from a distance. He can’t sense him, as the dead have no chakra, and he can’t hear him, as a spectral body cannot break foliage. But some deep-seeded animal instinct quakes in fear at the following. He simply  _ knows _ .

He has to get away. He keeps going. Minutes stretch into hours, and he keeps going. But he’s not at full capacity. He’s exhausted, from too much stress and too little sleep. He’s not going nearly as fast as he should be.

He’s not wearing armor, or even training clothes, just a black tank-top and his sleeping pants. The branches and the undergrowth of the forest scratch at his unprotected arms and bare feet, but he doesn’t care. He keeps going.

When he reaches a break in the trees, he stumbles. He lurches forward, and reaches mid-way through the clearing before realizing that he’d been led here. Herded, like an animal.

This is  _ that  _ battlefield. Izuna’s final. Where Tobirama finally triumphed in their stalemate of who’s stronger.

He collapses to his knees, and he can feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Izuna’s here. He’s making his way towards Tobirama, slowly, and Tobirama doesn’t need to see him to know.

He abruptly realizes he can’t sense  _ anything _ . That never happens. Even at his lowest, he could always sense at least a little bit. Maybe it’s something supernatural. Maybe it’s exhaustion. All he can feel is a deep, soul-wrenching cold.  _ The cold of death _ , he thinks hysterically. 

He feels Izuna’s presence behind him, but he’s too tired to move. Cold, cold fingers grab a fistful of his hair, and then two things happen at once. Tobirama feels his head jerk back, pulled by the fingers in his hair, and someone crashes into the clearing.

He’s face-to face with his literal worst nightmare, but he can  _ feel _ again.

Izuna looks away at the interruption, and Tobirama can’t see them, but he’d know those chakra signatures anywhere. Warm and green and  _ powerful, _ his brother. And next to him, a wildfire barely contained in human skin, is Izuna’s.

Hashirama and Madara are here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Time:  
>  _They only stop to get Hashirama some proper clothes. They don’t know what they’ll be facing, beyond that it apparently looks like Izuna, and it’s not a good idea to go into a fight blind and in your pajamas._


	6. One More (or One Less)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from "Two Birds" by Regina Spektor
> 
> God,,, this is so short,,,,,

They only stop to get Hashirama some proper clothes. They don’t know what they’ll be facing, beyond that it apparently looks like Izuna, and it’s not a good idea to go into a fight blind  _ and  _ in your pajamas.

Once his friend is ready, Madara closes his eyes and focuses. He’s not as good of a sensor as Tobirama, no one is, but he’s not bad. On the higher end of average, really. He’d be considered good if the Senju wasn’t so ridiculously competent.

It takes him a moment, but he find’s the deep-water of Tobirama’s chakra. He snaps his eyes open.

“West gate!” he barks, already heading in that direction, “He’s outside the village.”

He and Hashirama rush to the gate, and when they reach the forest they’re greeted with a worrying sight; Tobirama has left a clear trail. Not civilian-clear, but Tobirama generally covers his tracks better. It was habit. He must have been in a hurry.

_ Or panicked. _

He shakes off that thought, and shares a look with Hashirama. They both head off into the forest at full speed. They get closer and closer, gaining on Tobirama’s signature ( _ Which is another sign something’s wrong. Tobirama is faster than both of them by miles— _ ) when it stops. Tobirama isn’t moving anymore, and that makes them put on an extra burst of speed. Moments later, they see a break in the tree line.

They burst into the clearing, and there, in the center, is Tobirama. He’s on his knees, his head pulled back to look skyward. And the one pulling is Izuna.

He looks wrong. Insubstantial. And Madara can’t sense him, not even in the way he can feel civilians. There’s just a sense of cold, permeating the air in the clearing.

Izuna looks up at them and smiles, and Madara knows that thing isn’t his brother. That smile is  _ wrong _ , like there’s someone else in Izuna’s skin.

He’s off, a kunai in hand, even as roots erupt from the ground to force the specter away from it’s victim. Madara lands between Tobirama and the thing pretending to be his brother, kunai raised. 

Maybe Hashirama is more powerful, but Madara has always been  _ faster. _ Hashirama joins them a second later, and goes immediately to his brother’s side.

[ _ Nii-san _ ] The thing says, and it resonates through his being, not even a proper sound.

Madara snarls, his chakra  _ roiling  _ just beneath his skin. “You,” He growls, “are  _ not _ my brother.”

The thing laughs, hand in front of mouth and shoulders shaking, but no sound comes out. [ _ So sure, _ ] it says, [ _ And yet, death changes all. How can you be certain? _ ]

“Hn.” And contrary to his growing fury, Madara smirks. “You’re good, very good. You look just like him. You speak just like him. To an extent, you even act like him.” Here, his smirk turns to a sneer, and he glares at the thing. “But Izuna would never  _ steal someone’s eyes. _ ”

And _—_ the thing twitches. Jerks, and something  _ dark _ slithers, there-and-not, just beneath the skin. And for a second, just for a second, a different emotion flickers across its face.

And in that second, Madara sees his brother. His real brother, not whatever impostor this is.

His grip tightens on his kunai. “You aren’t just imitating him, are you.”

The thing twitches, again. [ _ I don’t— _ ]

“You’re  _ using  _ him. Like a puppet, for your twisted schemes.” Madara thought he couldn’t get any angrier, but this thing keeps finding new ways to make him  _ rage _ . “But he didn’t know about the eyes, did he. That you convinced Tobirama Izuna was going to  _ take them-- _ dreams, I bet. Nightmares.” It would explain the exhaustion, and the drawings, since Tobirama clearly still  _ had _ both his eyes.

The thing spasms again, Izuna poking through the darkness like sunlight through clouds. [ _ Stop it—! _ ]

“And maybe Izuna didn’t care enough about Tobirama’s suffering to fight you, but he cares about our clan. Our  _ rules. _ ” Snarling, Madara take a step forward. “And Uchiha  _ don’t. Steal. Eyes. _ ”

[ _ What have you—?! _ ] The thing jerks, clutching at it’s chest. [ _ Argh—! _ ] It bends over and retches, oily black smoke pouring to the ground.  _ Izuna _ stumbles back, clutching his throat.

“ _ Burn it! _ ” He says, and it’s really sound, though also a little bit more. “ _ Quickly! _ ”

Madara wastes no time obeying, shooting a katon in the thing’s direction. It screams as it burns, and soon all that’s left is a wisp of white smoke, which quickly dissipates. He spins to face Izuna.

“ _ Love you, Nii-san, _ ” Izuna laughs, but he’s crying. “ _ Sorry. _ ” He dissolves into light.

The clearing is quiet.

It’s over, and Madara feels… bittersweet. He got to see Izuna again, even if it was under these circumstances. And, he’s pretty sure his brother is in a better place now. He needs to focus on the now.

He turns to face the Senju brothers. They’re huddled together, Tobirama curled up into a ball, and Hashirama pressed up to his side. He walks up to them, but hesitates. He’s just turned around, to maybe give them some space, when a hand yanks him down towards them.

At first he thinks it’s Hashirama, but the hand fisted in his robe is too pale.

“Tobirama…?” He says, cautiously.

When the Senju speaks, his voice is rough. 

“…You’re warm.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit, it's over!!! Not entirely sure I'm happy with the ending, but,,,,,,,
> 
> There's going to be a sequel, at least, and I've already started writing it, but... I'ts slow going, to say the least.   
> I could either wait longer to post it (until it's done) and do regular updates, or I could update irregularly but start sooner.  
> I'm not quite sure what I wanna do yet, but!!! We'll get there when we get there, I guess!!!!


End file.
